Light and warmth of your house
If you chose country life, you would definitely want to enjoy nature not only when you leave the house, but also when you are inside. Building projects that take into account this desire of customers are becoming more and more popular, because heat preservation with a large area of facade glazing is no longer a problem. Thanks to modern window technologies.
Who will argue: it is pleasant to drink coffee in the living room, looking at the garden through a glass wall or, waking up, to see the dawn in the panoramic window of the bedroom, besides, it has long been established that increasing the amount of daylight in the room has a positive effect on a person’s well-being. But such splendor has a downside. Even the great architect Le Corbusier wrote that the history of architecture is “the history of the struggle for light, the struggle for windows.” The struggle is primarily with heat loss, which can greatly reduce the comfort of living. After all, 40% of the heat lost by the house goes precisely through the window openings. Naturally, the larger the glazing area, the higher this percentage. Work on saving heat is carried out in several directions at once.
Profile window
The most affordable polyvinyl chloride profiles. Thermal insulation in them is achieved primarily due to air chambers. The minimum number of air chambers in our climate is three, but four is better. Each of them increases the resistance to heat transfer, and, by and large, it is this resistance that is important, not the number of chambers. The minimum value of this value for a window is 0.51 m 2 ° С / W (for the PVC profile itself – 0.6 m 2 ° С / W), if the window area is no more than 25% of the wall area. And 0.56 m 2 ° C / W, if we are talking about large-scale glazing. If the heat transfer resistance is less, you will be cold, no matter how many chambers there are in the profile.
Hidden elements made of PVC have a size limit – up to 2 m 2 , deaf – 3-5 m 2 . When glazing a larger area, they are combined.
Panoramic glazing allows you to make a more expensive aluminum profile. Multi-chamber designs with thermal bridge inserts in such a profile successfully combat the thermal conductivity of metal. The higher the coefficient of heat transfer resistance and specific strength, the more complex and expensive the design.
Many people think that wooden windows are ideal for a country house. Wood certainly has good thermal insulation properties. But when it comes to large areas of glazing, you need to remember that wood is a living and capricious material. The advantages of wood without its disadvantages are embodied in wood-aluminum structures, which are also the most expensive.
In addition to the design and material of the profile, the quality of installation is of great importance.
It is quite difficult for a layman to control this process. You can, of course, study the installation instructions and monitor the work of the installers, but it is better to choose a reliable company with a well-known name. However, trust but verify. Therefore, in any case, ask the installers for an installation diagram indicating the installation materials used, as well as check the presence of certificates on the durability of the materials (minimum 20 conditional years of operation) and the conclusion of the sanitary and elevator supervision authorities.
Full face glass
For high-quality thermal insulation in regions with a moderate climate, at least double-chamber glazing is required. If the glazing area is really large, it is better not to limit yourself to the minimum – the larger the glass area, the higher the heat loss.
However, there is another option – not to increase the number of cameras, but to install double-glazed windows with low-emission glass.
The heat-reflective inner coating of the glass will “catch” all the solar heat that reaches a part of the room and keep it in the room without releasing it back. Such glasses – with selective optical properties – reflect the energy of the long-wave infrared range. The heat reflection effect is achieved in two ways. Hard coating (K-glass) is a layer of metal oxide that is applied to the glass in a hot state during its production. The coefficient of heat transfer resistance of a single-chamber double-glazed unit using K-glass is 0.61 m 2 ° С / W. A soft coating (I glass) is applied to the finished glass by cathodic sputtering in a magnetic field. The heat transfer resistance of I glass is 0.67 m 2° С / W. At the same time, the inner side of the glass maintains a temperature of +14 ° C and reflects heat rays towards their emitter. That is, in winter, such glass does not allow the room to cool down, and in summer it does not allow the sun to overheat the room. Chambers in double-glazed windows with low emissivity glass are usually filled with air and inert gas. This significantly extends the life of the window, since the inert gas does not decrease in volume under the action of cooling, and therefore does not put an additional load on the glass unit. In addition, the inert gas additionally increases the thermal insulation properties of the double-glazed unit.
Double-glazed windows manufactured using the “Thermal Mirror” technology are still rare – usually in so-called “passive” buildings, as they maximize the energy efficiency of windows. The principle of operation is that in the inner space of the double-glazed window, low-emission transparent membranes are stretched, reflecting almost all heat flows that try to leave the room through the window.
Let’s go and warm up
No matter what profile and glass unit is used, the window cannot compare with the wall material in terms of heat transfer resistance. So, its inner side will be colder at sub-zero temperatures outside. This threatens to cause condensation to fall on the glass, and will simply create discomfort for those nearby. You can solve this problem by installing a radiator or infrared water heaters sacramento under the windows.
When glazing from floor to ceiling, experts recommend using air heating. In this case, the mouths of the ducts are located next to the glazed facade. The warm air flow along the glass will prevent condensation, create a more comfortable climate in the immediate vicinity of the window and ensure uniform heating of the room.
If you decided on a house project with corner glazing, pay special attention to the issue of heating. In general, the corner of the house is the most difficult place, even if it is not glazed – because it is here that dampness, frostiness and dampness accumulate in the first place. Therefore, the presence of warm air flows in a glazed corner is not a whim, but an absolute necessity.
In addition to constructive methods of reducing heat loss, there are methods more related to architecture than to technology. So, for example, at the stage of tying the project to the site, pay attention to which side of the light the largest windows will face. It is good if it is south or southwest – the room will get more solar heat and light.
